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30 April 2012

Yesterday was hugely stressful for me with college work. I still have exams to study for but all my essays have been handed in so I am planning a little haul that I hope to post on the 11th of May (and seeing as I have picked a date I really HAVE to buy all of the polishes and other items on my list. Hope they are all in stock *fingers crossed*.
I was actually stumped as to which polish I should show ye all today but eventually I sorted through all of my images and picked out Catrice Captain Sparrows boat. I loved the name! If a polish has a fun name and it's made by Catrice then I will probably buy it : P
I am not a huge grey polish fan. I have one by the brand no7 and I really only bought it because I had a voucher for €7.50 off. It didn't really excite me. (All of the images are taken during the day. The darker ones were indoors, the lighter ones in direct sunlight) : )

So here is the lovely Captain sparrow's boat. Firstly, I really have to apologize for the cuticles. They did not look this bad in real life! I haven't worn nail varnish in about a week (stress) and my little pinky nail finally broke after I bashed it into a door (I was cleaning and I was not happy : P ).It was on my right hand with always suffers as it is my dominant hand. As I mentioned I had a pretty bad week overall and I thought about cutting all my nails off to match my nubbin. I'm still undecided though.
Back to the polish!! This reminded me of the lead you find in a pencil so much! I actually LOVED this colour on much nails. It is perfect for a situation where you want to look professional and sophisticated but don't want nude nails.

This is 1 coat of my stargazer base coat (I might actually do a little post on this as it's a gorgeous polish that it actually a normal nail polish but I use it as a base coat because it dries really quickly), 2 coats of Captain Sparrow's boat and no top coat (oh I actually have another post with a topcoat but it's a tad unusual so a second post is needed).
This polish dried so quickly. This is what I really love about Catrice polishes. Their formula is not compromised to reflect the price. This is from the "old" collection of catrice polsihes so it still has the older, long stem and slightly flatter brush. I have no problems with either brush but I can do a comparison if ye would like? Let me know!

The above is just a side by side view of the polish in light, medium light, and somewhat darker light if that makes any sense to ye : P

This is definitely one polish that I am so glad I picked it. It can appear streaky in pictures but it is not a problem and I actually don't mind it at all with this polish.I wore this for a week without chips and only minimal tip wear.As usual this polish retails at €2.79 but I actually got this for €1.40!!!! Major bargain! (I may have bought 8 other polishes at the same time but who could resist with a price like that!!!)

Click on the above images to see the little glitter particles that are hidden in this polish in the bottle! Amazing!

What do ye all think of this polish? Are ye a fan of grey polishes? Also, I changed the font on my blog mainly because I thought it might have been a bit hard to read. I hope the new font is better for ye : D Thanks all for now!
If ye want to just chat with me I am on twitter @Cuti-CLUE-les , also I have set up a Facebook page for the blog. The link is over on the right ---->
Please like and follow if ye all get a chance.

28 April 2012

I was just responding to some of your comments when I looked over at that the poll I have posted on the right and noticed the numbers of people that have voted has dropped from 14 or so to 11! How did that happen? Did people retract their vote? This has really puzzled me!!

25 April 2012

..and we can get away with this tonight" Metro station-17 forever lyrics (I love this song. It's definitely a guilty pleasure)

Evening all,

17 forever bottle

For once I am actually posting at a reasonable hour ha! Today I have one of my very first polishes that I fell head over heels for. This is also the first time that I took a picture of my nails to share online!!! Hence the short nails. I was actually so excited with the length of my nails. This was the longest I had ever had them.Crazy right?
Here is the brand 17 which belongs to the Boots range, the polish itself is called Forever. They have such nice colours but I think they are far too expensive for an own brand nail varnish.
Here is the bottle. It's simple but I love the writing on it. The brushes are grand! They are wide enough to cover the nail but not so wide that your pinky finger is slathered is polish. The bristles are quite sturdy making the polish easier to control.
The polish in the bottle is quite accurate in representing the colour that you end up with on the nail.
The bottles seem quite small but a little goes a long way! Each bottle holds 8ml of varnish.

I thought I had major photography skills haha

Forever is a gorgeous nude creme. In each picture I have on 1 coat of stargazer basecoat, 2 coats of 17 forever and 1 coat of miss sporty top coat. On shorter nails you can get away with 2 coats. On my nails now I would probably need 3 to cover nail lines. I don't mind that too much though because I really like the colour. I am on the lookout for a similar colour that is more opaque though.

Indoor shot in unnatural light

I love the way the polish looked with my skin tone. It applied so well.
The major downfall, for someone who doesn't own quick drying topcoats,is the drying time. It takes a fair while to dry. Now I don't mean hours but compared to Catrice and even Barry m, this polish is just not on the same level in terms of speed in drying.
It does dry evenly though. It didn't bubble when applied and I wore this for a week without chipping (I'm surprised I can remember that fact but anything useful for exams just floats straight out of my head haha)

These were taken waaaayyyyy before I even knew normal people like myself could actual start up their own nail polish blog. I had never heard of cuticle's (which explains my blog name in a way :P ) and the thought of buying cream designed to moisturize them wasn't even going to appear on my radar for another few months.

Taken in natural light

This picture really doesn't do the varnish any justice. I think the pictures taken indoors in unnatural light actually show the quality of the polish better.I only have 2 varnishes by the brand 17 in my colletion. My main reasoning for this is the price. Each bottle costs around €4.50 each. I could only justify spending this much on a polish with kind of crap drying time after seeing the swatches online. Beautiful! The other polish I have is called Sweet kisses. It's a lovely baby pink creme.

Overall, I am delighted that I bought this polish. It's pretty much what started off my obsession with doing my nails. I think this was taken in September of last year on my first day back to college.

What do ye all think? I know a lot of ye don't have access to this brand. I think it is only available in Ireland and the UK. If ye had the chance would ye buy it? Do ye have any suggestions for a nice nude polish?
That's all for today! Hope ye all enjoyed this post. Thank you all for following. I am almost up to 40 followers and I can't believe it. I'm so happy that so many people had decided to follow my little blog. I work really hard and try to make these posts as detailed as possible. Your comments have all been so nice and I really appreciate it.

23 April 2012

I posted on twitter yesterday that I made a franken polish and the lovely Miss
Theodora from redhairandblacknailpolish asked to see some pictures. I had some
left over miss sport clear polish that I never use anymore. It was nearly empty
so I added in some No7 clear polish (this polish is awful! Bubbles and never
dries. Grrr I am so glad I never pay full price for these polishes). I mixed in
a really old body dust powder that I got free in a magazine about 10 years
ago? I never used it but it looked so pretty in the bottle so it seemed a shame
to throw it out.

I didn’t measure any of these quantities mainly because I
thought it would be a complete failure haha. That’s confidence for you right
there!

Anyway, for these swatches I used my usual stargazer base coat.
On my index finger I just used Mr T..(ea) time, on my middle finger I have 2
coats of Stargzer black, on my ring finger I have 2 coats of No7 white and lastly
on my pinky finger I have 2 coats of Catrice I wear my sun glasses at night. As ye can tell (probably better than I can) It is a gold polish with tiny little glitters inside. It is sheer. I included some pictures of it on my naked-ish nail (I used a base coat). The first lot of pictures are without a top coat. The name stems from the legendary Mr T during his A-Team years. The kind of tarnished gold look of the polish reminded me of his chains and because it reminds me of teabag adverts so I combined the two....yeh I may have to rethink it haha.

Here are a lot of swatches:

No7 White

Catrice I wear my sunglasses at night

Up close shot of Catrice IWMSAN

One coat of Mr T..(ea)time

One coat of Mr T..(ea)time with Stargazer on on its own

Mr T..(ea)time over Catrice

2 coats of Mr T..(ea)time

Better shot to show the glitters

Another group shot

In natural light

In sunlight with Catrice bottle

In sunlight with Stargazer bottle

Another with the Stargazer

With Mr T..(ea)time

Again with Mr T..(ea)time

Another in the sun (it's rare in Ireland so I made the most of it haha)

Last one without a top coat.

Are ye sick of it yet? Well here are some more with a topcoat!!!

So that's them all. I prefer it over Catrice IWMSAN. The Stargazer looks bumpy because the bottle is soooo old! I added so much nail varnish remover to ungloopify ( I know it's not a word but it works) it. It'll do me because I really don't want to throw it away. You can't buy them here anymore. I emailed them to ask but they never replied to little old me *sad face*. I really do not like it over white but I thought it would be a good way to show its true golden base.

What do ye all think of Mr T..(ea)time? Please be honest so I don't embarrass myself further by trying to do more haha. Ye can be as detailed as ye want :)

22 April 2012

Just a quick little post to let ye know that Amanda at Nox nails is having a giveaway here http://noxnails.blogspot.com/2012/04/giveaway-time-50-followers.html. Ye should all check her out and enter!
I love her name just because I love Harry potter!!! I don't know if this was intentional or not but I <3 her blog name.
Here are the prizes:

20 April 2012

I'm back again! This time it is with The Nail polish tag passed to me by one of my favourite bloggers, Miss
Theodora at redhairandblacknailpolish.blogspot.com.
You all probably follow her blog but if not then check her out because she has
the best pictures!

Rules:

Answer the 10 questions

Pass this tag to 5 other bloggers

Alert the bloggers you tagged about this.

1)How
many polishes do you have?

I have 64 nail varnishes so far. I try to
only buy polishes that I know I will actually use at some point. What’s the point in buying nail polish you
hate?

2)What
is your favourite brand of nail polish?

Hmm I would have to say Catrice at the
moment. Their new collection is perfect for me.

3)Do
you like crackle polish, or do you hate it?

I like it. I do prefer the original black
version more than the coloured ones but it’s handy for jazzing up a manicure if
you smudge it haha.

4)What
was your first nail polish brand?

Stargazer! I love them so much. You can’t
buy them here anymore which is really disappointing.

5)If
you’re gonna create a nail polish line, what are you gonna name it?

I’m not. I just don’t have the time to do
it!

6)What
nail polish colour does not compliment you?

I think a lot of colours don’t suit me but I
wear them anyway: P If I had to pick one it would probably be white.

7)And
what colour does compliment you?

I think darker polishes usually look best
on me. Dark red looks grand on me.

8)Name
2 of your best nail art friends!

I don’t really have any but I recently I
came across Ashesela from artevolve.blogspot.com
who has the most amazing freehand work. Beautiful! Also I think Theodora at redhairandblacknailpolish.blogspot.com
has some amazing nail art going on and I
actually tried to replicate her Christmas designs (and failed miserably).

9)What
was the best nail polish gift you have ever received?

I don’t get nail polish gifts often but the
lovely blogger Shanna gave me her bottle of Essence Time for romance because
she didn’t want it. I thought it was so nice of her! Here is her blog miss-greeneyes.blogspot.com

10)Make a speech about thanking the blogger who
gave you this tag.

Theodora at redhairandblacknailpolish.blogspot.com
passed this tag on to me. She is such a lovely blogger and always has the
nicest things to say. She is really down to earth and there aren’t any heirs
and graces on her blog. What you see is really what you get. I love her blog
and it is actually one of the first blogs I ever followed! I remember looking
at it because I love black nail polish and I was intrigued about the red hair:
D I still follow her blog religiously and her nail swatches have forced me to
buy more nail polish :P

Another late post (or is it early for ye? I have no idea what the time differences are like. It's 01:07 in the morning here in Ireland. Let me know what time it is where ye are living and we will solve this puzzle as a nail polish time fighting team :P ).
Today I have my all time favourite polish! This may be the only proper creme pink I will ever own. I am not a fan of pink normally. I have a couple pink polishes but none are like this. I bought this on some what of a whim. I tried to swatch it online but there was very few accurate images around. They were all of totally different polishes. So I caved and I bought it.

Barry M pink flamingo

This little beauty is Barry M Pink Flamingo. It is a beautiful pink creme. It's not a neon pink but it is just as eye-catching. I love how smoothly this polish applied. The finish is perfect. No streaking or bubbling (A huge plus for me).
I had 2 coats of this for full opacity. Like most polishes you could get away with one coat if you have shorter nails.
I wore this manicure for a full week without any chips and only slight tip wear.The brushes on barry m nail products are quite long but they are surprisingly easy to handle. I only have a tiny bit of clean up to do (usually on my right hand. That's why it will never appear here :P )

The bottom label

The one problem I have with Barry M polishes in general is this
<--------
I really like the name of the polish to be on the label of the bottle. Having it on the bottom is so irritating. Especially if you just want a quick glance for a polish in the shop. It drives me mad trying to pick them up and put them down until I find the right one. It just so happens that every time I kneel down to have a little look at the pretty polish some crazy bag lady happens to walk behind me and thumps me with her bag!!! Seriously how can they not feel it or even hear the thump. I wish they would put polish at eye level instead on the lower stands.
Here I have one base coat of stargazer, 2 coats of Barry M pink flamingo and one layer of top coat by the brand Miss Sporty.This dried quite quickly so no fear of ruining your nails after painting them.

Indoors

In natural sunlight

I am sorry about the picture! Blogger seems to turn every third picture around. *sigh*
At least ye can see how lovely this polish is in natural light. I have worn this polish twice and both times it turned out perfectly. This is definitely down to the polish and not the painter haha.
I will be truthful (like always) and say that I am a bit picky with polish (you'll all wholeheartedly agree by the time I post a few more polishes...maybe you agree now I have no idea). I would have left this polish in boots just because it is pink. I am so glad I didn't because it is the one polish I reach for every time I go to paint my nails. If my untried section was smaller you would see this polish A LOT more :P but thankfully for you I am trying to get my untried's through their exams in polish college and allow them to graduate as official tried polishes!

So tell me girls and gails (Guy nail polish addicts) do you like this polish? Do any of you actually have it? I've seen a few bloggers with this polish in their stash but very few have actually swatched it. This polish was €4.57 in boots for a 10ml bottle.

16 April 2012

Hey all,
How are ye all keeping? Today I thought it would be nice to throw up a post about one of my top nail varnish brands. I actually only heard of the brand Catrice before Christmas and I have collected quite a few since then.

Catrice Caught on the red carpet bottle

This is Caught on the red carpet by Catrice. It is one of my absolute favourite colours ever. These pictures were taken when I first got the polish (hence the short nails). I think I wore this for about 8 days before I reluctantly took it off. I know Catrice are fairly hard to get hold of for the majority of bloggers overseas but if you get the chance to get some then seriously buy as many as you can :P Just blame me if people question you haha.
The colours changes depending on the light. Indoors it is generally a dark blood red. It's vampy and gorgeous!
In sunlight it looks exactly like the colour in the bottle.I love how it changes. It means you don't get bored with it quickly and both colours are beautiful
I got a load of compliments on this polish which is always nice.

Taken in natural light

I think this was actually the first time I ever got a nail related compliment. This polish has a special place in my collection.

To make it opaque I needed 2 coats. The formula was perfect! It glided on and drying time, like all catrice varnishes, was perfect. No bubbling or streaks and the polish didn't drag. I have a base coat and top coat on in these pictures.

I haven't worn this polish for a while but every time I do I fall in love with it all over again.This picture shows the change in colour. In reality it is a teeny tiny bit darker. This would be one of my favourite reds.

Catrice nail polishes cost €2.79 each for a 10ml bottle. This is one of the reasons why I love this brand. You really get a lot for your money. I know quite a few people that wouldn't buy cheap polishes because they think the quality is awful. They could not be more wrong with these.

Taken indoors in sunlight

Taken indoors

Do any of ye have polishes by Catrice? They have recently discontinued quite a few of their polishes. I wouldn't worry though because they have re-released some of their more popular polishes. Some have been changed slightly but they are still worth picking up. That's all for today! I hope ye all had a nice weekend. Let me know what yer favourite Catrice polish is.

Oh and I just want to thank ye all for following! I never thought I would have 18 followers after 3 months never mind a week!!! I'm so appreciative of all your nice comments. I do take the time to read and respond to all comments and emails the moment I recieve them.

I hope to have a little "blogger of the week" series going on like other bloggers just to highlight my favourite blogs. I will start this around June if ye are interested. I'll pop up a little poll about it later so if ye get a chance just have a little vote and tell me if ye would like to see this or not. If ye have any other recommendations of things ye would like to see on my blog send me an email at cuticlueless@gmail.com or scribble it down in the comment section below.

13 April 2012

It's late and I was debating doing some study, going to bed or doing a little blog post. I feel this is going to be my mind frame for the next while (hopefully a long while)
Anyway for your eyes today I have a brand that is fairly commonly known in Ireland and the UK but I don't think you can really get it abroad (correct me if I am wrong though).
I did have another post scheduled but I didn't have a picture of the bottle. I think it's nice to include a bottle picture in case ye want to buy it and don't want to go on name alone.
It's the brand Barry M and the polish is called Peach melba. I bought this a good year ago and after relentlessly googling swatches online. I took it home, swatched it on my own hand...and I hated it! pure hatred!! I repeated this like 3 times until I tried again the last day just so it would no longer be an untried polish and...I love it!!!!

Barry M Peach Melba

This was 1 base coat of stargazer, 3 coats of Barry M peach melba and 1 coat of essence quickdry top coat.

I needed 3 coats because I hate visible nail line. Hate it with a capital H. It dried fairly quickly though so I wouldn't worry about that.

I would really recommend this if you can get it. I have 4 other Barry M colours and I love them so much.

There are a lot of pictures here because I really want to show you how pretty this polish is. Like the essence polish I would say if you have shorter nails you could get away with 2 coats no bother.

Taken in natural light

This lasted 5 days without chipping (I think I chipped it through scratching at it though haha)
Barry M are dear enough,I think anyway, as I bought this for €4.50. When I first bought it I have to say I was so disappointed that I had wasted so much money on this. This was my first Barry m nail varnish. I never really trusted their formula after reading other bloggers comments but I really wanted this so I "splashed out" haha.
As I said I do really love it now (not as much as my other Barry m's but you'll hopefully see why when I post their swatches).

Taken in sunlight

In the pictures you can obviously see a gorgeous peachy colour. It does have a hint of pink in it in certain lights.
The bottles are fairly big at 10ml each which is great.
The prices have since gone up to around €4.79 or something like that. I will try and find out the exact price for my next posts.

What do ye all think? Do any of ye have this polish?I really do love this brand now and I would like to try more of their colours but I can't REALLY spend that much on one polish and buy loads at the same time. I do highly recommend the brand though.

That's all for now. Sorry for the long post but I like to be informative ( and I really don't want to sleep yet)